Balkan sound identity. The impact of Kiril Dzajkovski's film music

Abstract

Macedonian composer Kiril Dzajkovski's film music is defined by intermedial aesthetics, situated at the confluence of Balkan musical tradition, classical/Western European timbrality and contemporary electronic production techniques. In his compositions that go with cinematographic films such as The Great Water or Dust, Dzajkovski creates a distinct sound world marked by stylistic hybridization and emotional expressiveness. An approach that reflects not only the regional specificity of the Balkans, but also a universal view of conflict, memory and identity, thus developing a multicultural musical discourse. By using timbre contrasts, recurring themes and modal structures, the musician creates scores that function not only as a sound background, but as veritable narrative extensions of the film. In his works Bal-Can-Can, The Third Half and Balkan Is Not Dead, Dzajkovski proposes a sound dramaturgy that actively takes part in the construction of cinematographic meaning, by intertwining lyrical, epic and satirical registers. His music contributes to the shaping of an audiovisual rhetoric in which the musical element gets symbolic and emotional meaning, supporting or sometimes contrasting the director's intention. The integration of ethno-folkloric elements in orchestral or electronic textures generates an expressive tension between modernity and tradition, between document and fiction. Thus, Dzajkovsky's film music can be viewed as both a sound illustration and as a form of critical commentary and emotional mediation between the viewer and the cinematographic narrative.